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People are starting to get it (lemmy.ml)
submitted 4 months ago by to c/actualsocialism@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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[–] 36 points 4 months ago (4 children)

The sentiment is true, that the middle class are being pushed back - but it was hardly a fluke.

Unions became incredibly strong post-WWII and actually had teeth back then, so the average person became much better off as a result.

But since then the wealthy have slowly perverted the law to rip out those teeth and started pushing back what was fought for. And we're now getting towards the end-game.

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  • [–] 16 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (1 child)

    Workers had much more teeth back then due to crisis of profitability prior to WW2 that affected the entire world, as seen by the great depressions and austerity. Bad conditions = unrest

    After WW2, in US especially whose capital didn't get destroyed in the imperialist war, there was a period of superprofits due to everything having to be rebuilt, baby boom, etc. New outlets for investment opened up.

    Workers were still rowdy, but got suppressed by red scares, failed revolutions, and concessions bourgeois used from the newfound superprofits to fund keynesianism/welfare states.

    Now that rate of profit is back in the gutter again (it always falls), we are going back to austerity and it's what ultimately drives everything, not some evil cabal but tendency for rate of profit to fall

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